


The Trains We Wait On

by IntoTheRiverStyx



Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, M/M, Trains, liminal spaces
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:21:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28585662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IntoTheRiverStyx/pseuds/IntoTheRiverStyx
Summary: Lancelot had everything, and then lost it.As he waits for his train, ghosts that never really died have come to haunt himOh, if only love were enough.
Relationships: Lancelot du Lac/Arthur Pendragon
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	The Trains We Wait On

Lancelot couldn't miss his train.

He had time to kill, time to let slip away without touching him. This was the nature of train stations, he knew – time was not here, not really. Waiting was, though, and waiting he could handle.

The recognition was there for a moment, just a moment, but it was enough to make Lancelot's stomach tie itself in a knot that wouldn't undo itself for weeks. He had not expected to see him here – _Of all places!_ – he thought he was safe from ever feeling that pain again.

He'd caught a glimpse of Arthur – though he went by William now, what a terrible boring name despite being the name of Kings – while he was waiting for his coffee. He'd stared, he knew he'd stared, but he couldn't bring himself to care about how obvious he was being.

He was so close to him, so, so close to the man he thought he could love through lifetimes. And they'd tried, God and gods alike knew they'd tried. 

Lancelot couldn't miss his train.

They'd been so young, so ready and eager to take on the world. They were _Arthur and Lancelot_ , and there was no power in the world that could come between them. They swore to it time and time again, they drank and howled at the stars and dared the heavens to throw their worse at them.

They loved, they loved each other so fiercely they seemed to have always been _like that._ When their friends commented on how close they were and how much it seemed like they _just slotted together_ , they would laugh and laugh and _know_ how deep that truth ran.

In the end, it hadn't been the heavens that brought them to their personal worst.

They were _Arthur and Lancelot,_ sure, but that was another life, quite literally. They'd made no room to be anyone else.

Lancelot couldn't miss his train.

And so, when it became clear this was not the life Camelot was to rally and they had to figure out how to just be _people_ , they realized there was no room in their hearts for that.

It had been a slow thing, so slow Lancelot thought he might be able to miss the falling out entirely. He'd ignored it, he'd swept the warning signs that _Lancelot and Arthur_ could not survive this life together under whatever rug the space for toxic denial kept in its ugly box in Lancelot's mind.

It was ironic, ironic in the ways that tore at Lancelot's sense of self, how much more intense their love became at the end of things. They'd turned down jobs that would have them out of the apartment at different times, given up _dream jobs_ and _high salaries_ so they could have more time together.

Arthur must have sensed it, too – he'd take every chance to got to fuck Lancelot on the nearest surface that could hold their weight. Lancelot had begged every time – more, stay, _**I need you**_ and that last one wasn't just the sex or the physical presence, it was a need that had settled into his bones centuries ago and refused to leave. 

Lancelot couldn't miss his train.

He hadn't meant to follow Arthur around the station, he really hadn't. Coffee he no longer cared about, coffee he could not longer taste, his brain shutting off damned near every sense in some twisted act of self-preservation, in one hand, he'd tried to go to the shop that sold little overpriced trinkets that were nearly always thrown away by the receiver within a year or two.

Be he was there, too.

So too was Arthur there in the chocolate shop, in the tailor's that seemed horribly out of place in the station, and again too in the shop that sold beautiful jewelry that required armed security at the entrance.

Arthur was everywhere, and Lancelot supposed it would always be this way. They'd been just similar enough to convince themselves _this will work_ and had used the parts of them that overlapped to cover the gaps.

The thing was, there were so many gaps that the working parts got stretched too thin. They'd failed, brittle and almost unrecognizable, the joy they both had carried somehow dead and neither of them had noticed its passing.

Lancelot wanted to run, wanted to go outside and walk and walk and walk until he dropped from exhaustion. Maybe then Arthur wouldn't be there.

Lancelot couldn't miss his train.

He looked around – Arthur was there, again, walking away but Lancelot had memorized the shape of _his Arthur_ and, almost without thought or will, tried to follow deliberately this time.

Lancelot wanted to apologize, wanted to ask him how he was doing, wanted to _make sure he'd made it in life_ like he deserved.

It was selfish, but he needed this.

The crowds were thick now, the trains that had purged themselves of their passengers spilling all over the station, causing a flood of bodies that Lancelot did not care about.

_Would all passengers on the 5:15 train to Atlanta please head to Gate seven._

That was Lancelot's train.

There would be no apologies, no closure. 

Even if there had been the chance, what would he have said? There were no words that would not look and feel like more harm being done, old scars being cut open once more.

As he boarded his train, time returned and his life came rushing back.

Lancelot did not miss his train.


End file.
